


Hey, Do You Recall When the War Was Just a Game?

by mightygwima



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Caspar goes through all the stages of grief at once, Childhood Friends, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I break the Do Not Separate Them rule, IM SORRY MARTY, It references their chapter 18 dialogue oops, Keepsakes, M/M, Minor description of corpses, NOT THEIRS DONT WORRY, Or am I, Or what seems to suggest comfort, Sentimentality in war, So do I, im sorry, implied major character death, minor description of injuries, no beta we die like Glenn, this was fueled by mtn dew merry mash-up and a woodkid song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 21:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21545992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mightygwima/pseuds/mightygwima
Summary: “What are you doing?” Linhardt asked. Caspar could hear, more than see, the quirk of his eyebrow.“Sitting with you,” he answered. “Isn’t that obvious?”—:—:—Caspar and Linhardt reminisce.
Relationships: Linhardt von Hevring/Caspar von Bergliez
Comments: 10
Kudos: 60
Collections: The Linspar Discord's Collection of Chaos and Love





	Hey, Do You Recall When the War Was Just a Game?

**Author's Note:**

> _“In the glorious days, till we lost our ways_   
>  _Hey, do you recall when the war was just a game?_   
>  _Now the wind ventures to other plains_   
>  _Hey, when will I see you again if I go?_   
>  _This train whistles and blows all sounds away_   
>  _Hey, how could we be close again?”_   
>  [\- Stabat Mater // Woodkid](https://youtu.be/ejSd_f-Atgo)

Caspar raised his axe.

Half stumbling, he pushed himself up from the mud and wiped his brow with a gloved hand. There was a nasty gash there, he noted— it’d probably scar. It didn’t matter. His gauntlet came away red, but Caspar couldn’t say whether it was his mess or somebody else’s. Everyone bled red; he’d had more than enough experience to know that. It didn’t matter.

Rain pounded the ground around him as he struggled to his feet. The distant rumble of thunder might have scared him, once upon a time— a time cluttered with books and parchment and sweet buns and the comfort he took in the all-too-familiar warmth of another’s bedroom— but now it blended well with the rush of cavalry and the clanging of boots and chainmail. 

The charm against his chest was a familiar weight, though: grounding. He had nothing to worry about.

He had no clue where his battalion had run off to. The fighting had moved beyond his section of the battlefield. He could hear it just over the hill and past the next line of houses. He was in no rush to rejoin it— a thought that surprised him as much as it would have surprised anyone else, he was sure. Something else seemed to call to him.

As he walked, not knowing just where his feet carried him, the dead watched him. Some of their stares were glassy and unfocused, others still blinked tears away as their light faded. He turned away from them: for all of their haziness, their gazes were still sharp and painful. He’d never get used to it. He hoped he’d never get used to it.

He paused in the shadows, leaning heavily against the weathered brick of an abandoned home. Squinting through the rain in the last waning moments of daylight, Caspar could make out a figure sitting against the building a short distance away. He gripped his weapon tight, crept forward, and more features soon came into view: long green hair, matted with blood and dirt, tied back with a delicate white ribbon. They inclined their head towards him and realization struck Caspar in the chest while another part of him hoped he was wrong.

“Linhardt,” he breathed. He began his shuffle over, his heart racing. Was it really… Could it actually be…?

“Caspar,” Linhardt spoke, as easy as ever. 

He let out a breath he wasn’t aware he had been holding. Caspar was glad to hear his friend’s voice was not strained and hoarse from war as so many others’ were. As his own was. His timbre carried the same drowsy warmth it always had, as though he were mere moments from curling up to nap; of course, there were simpler times where he would’ve done just that. Absently, Caspar wondered if he remembered those days fondly. 

He lowered himself to sit beside the cleric, heaving a sigh.

“What are you doing?” Linhardt asked. Caspar could hear, more than see, the quirk of his eyebrow.

“Sitting with you,” he answered. “Isn’t that obvious?”

Linhardt only hummed and seemed to relax where he was leaned against the wall, although Caspar could still feel his eyes on him. 

“I suppose it is.”

Silence stretched between the two men as a flash of lightning illuminated them. If Caspar tensed slightly, Linhardt didn’t comment.

“You’re hurt.” Caspar finally said.

Linhardt nodded. He hummed noncommittally once more. “So are you. Let me just…”

He placed a clammy hand on Caspar’s shoulder and, almost immediately, the well-known tingle of Linhardt’s healing magic washed over him. 

“Linhardt, you shouldn’t—“

“Hush. I want to. Let me do this for you,” Linhardt insisted, moving to seal the cut on his forehead. Caspar felt grateful, if not confused, but glancing over Linhardt’s own form he could only think of how cruel it was that Linhardt wasn’t able to use those skills on himself. 

“There,” Linhardt grunted his approval, satisfied with his work at last. “You’re ready to go.”

He dabbed at the still-wet blood on Caspar’s forehead with a handkerchief that was embroidered with the crest of Cethleann. The Lovers crest, Caspar’s mind supplied. What a cruel moment to recall such a thing.

Caspar nodded his thanks and bit at the inside of his cheek as Linhardt’s arm dropped back to his side. 

“Lin, I should get you to a healer.”

Linhardt didn’t answer, only smiling ever so slightly. He was avoiding the topic. “Do you remember, when we were younger? We would play here all the time.” 

Of course he remembered. That’s what would have made his death there so horribly ironic, after all. It lingered in the back of his mind: Merceus had been his home, once.

“I would braid flowers in your hair,” he said instead. “Daisies, from the gardens.”

“Poorly,” Linhardt added. “You braided poorly.”

Caspar sputtered. “Hey, I still did it! It’s not like I had lots of people with long hair to practice on!” He nudged Linhardt playfully and grinned, delighting in the gentle laughter the gesture earned from him. For a short moment, it was almost like nothing had changed between the two. Almost.

The word was bitter in Caspar’s mouth. Almost meant nothing, in the end. He turned his head and let out another sigh. Quietly, he admitted:

“Back then, the walls and the towers made me feel so safe… now they’re just… suffocating. Looming, I guess.”

A long— or maybe it was a very, very short— moment of contemplation. 

“I have to agree with you,” Linhardt conceded. “It’s not the same. Do you think there are still daisies growing by the bench?”

“The one by the willow?” Their names were carved on the back of that bench.

“Yes, that one.”

“I think so. I could get some for you?”

“Thank you, Caspar.” It wasn’t a no.

But Caspar made no move to get up. Instead, he reached for Linhardt’s hand and squeezed it tightly. Linhardt’s thumb rubbed soothing circles over his knuckles. It was a familiar routine, one he had missed.

(Somewhere nearby, somebody shouted for Caspar. He ignored the voice).

Linhardt clasped the other’s hand a bit tighter. “... What is it like? Fighting alongside them?”

Caspar dwelled on the question, but more so on the hope that welled inside of him at it. He considered his words carefully as he laced their fingers.

“It’s… nice. Claude is really smart, but he’s also really kind. He’s got a good vision for the world. Everyone else is great too: Leonie, Hilda, Marianne. I wish you could get to know them.”

“Me too.”

“You could. I could take you to them. Marianne is almost as good a healer as you are. You’d be okay.”

Another flash of lightning.

Caspar thought for a moment that Linhardt’s cheeks looked damp in the light. That habitual silence occupied their air again, much heavier than before.

He noted, for the first time, just how ragged Linhardt’s breath was. He watched his eyes flutter— heavy with sleep or something worse— and look to him.

“I wish I could be,” came Linhardt’s choked admittance.

“Me too.”

Gently, Linhardt moved to rest his head against Caspar’s arm. He stared at their clasped hands.

“Caspar, do you realize... this will be the first time we’ve ever fought?”

A lump caught in his throat. “Yeah. And probably the last.”

“Yeah,” Linhardt echoed, hollow. He let go.

(The footsteps resounded, ever closer).

Caspar hesitantly moved away and rose to his feet once more, struggling for a different reason than before. Linhardt looked up at him, tired eyes gleaming with acceptance and regret and perhaps something akin to pride. Caspar felt as though he might vomit, his vision swimming and spinning with grief that rose up all at once. He swallowed down a sob.

“I’m sorry, Caspar.”

“I’m sorry, Linhardt.”

Caspar raised his axe.

**Author's Note:**

> [@mightygwima on twitter and tumblr](https://twitter.com/mightygwima)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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